WASHINGTON (AP) – A monument was erected Thursday at the National Cathedral in Washington to honor seven people. World Central Kitchen aid worker killed in Israeli airstrike in Gaza earlier this month.
Jose Andrés is a celebrity chef and philanthropist based in Washington. World Central Kitchen Disaster Relief Groupwill speak at the lifetime service celebration, and famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma will perform, organizers said.
The Biden administration announced Thursday that Vice President Kamala Harris' husband Douglas Emhoff and Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell will be among the top government officials in attendance.
of aid worker killed On April 1, armed Israeli drones destroyed one vehicle after another in a convoy as it departed from one of World Central Kitchen's warehouses on a food delivery mission. The person who died was Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, a Palestinian. British John Chapman, James Kirby and James Henderson. Jacob Flickinger is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Larzaumi Francome from Australia. and Damiam Sobol, a Polish national.
After an unusually rapid investigation, Israel claimed – erroneously – that military officials involved in the strike showed that one in seven personnel was armed. It said it acted on the grainy photo and violated policy.of Israeli army fires two officers He then scolded the other three.
The trip was coordinated by Israeli authorities and the aid workers were among more than 220 humanitarian workers killed in the six-month Israeli-Hamas war, according to the United Nations. At least 30 of them died in the line of duty.
The international fame and popularity of Mr. Andres and his nonprofit work sparked widespread outrage over the killing of the World Central Kitchen employee.The killings intensified Requests from the Biden administration The Israeli military has changed the way it operates in Gaza in order to save aid workers and the Palestinian civilian population as a whole, who are facing a humanitarian crisis and are in dire need of assistance from relief organizations, as the United Nations has warned. Some people say that there are. looming famine.
World Central Kitchen and several other humanitarian agencies Work in Gaza suspended After the attack. “We are not giving up,” World Central Kitchen spokeswoman Linda Ross said last week. “We're in funeral mode right now.”
Religious leaders from various faiths are scheduled to participate in Thursday's service. The funeral was held early in the worker's home country.
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Associated Press writer Menelaos Hadjikostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.
